SilcoTek Company News and Awards

SilcoTek Remains Open, Supporting COVID-19 Efforts

As you may know, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf ordered all non-life-sustaining businesses to close their physical locations starting Thursday, March 19th in an increased effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. Because of the importance of SilcoTek’s work relating to COVID-19 research and analytical testing, the Pennsylvania Governor’s office confirmed that SilcoTek is classified as a life sustaining business and are authorized to remain operational. According to the Governor’s office, “Life sustaining businesses may remain open, but they must follow, at a minimum, the social distancing practices and other mitigation measures defined by the Centers for Disease Control to protect workers and patrons.”

The game changing properties resulting from SilcoTek's coating are considered essential in the Corona battle and as such SilcoTek has been given approval to maintain operations. The social distancing measures put in place by SilcoTek exceed the criteria established by the Government. The measures we put in place were designed to put the safety of our employees first as we navigate through this pandemic. We will continue to employ best practices and make improvements as we work together to prevent the inadvertent spread of this virus.

SilcoTek is proud to be able to continue serving our customers during these challenging and unprecedented times. We are working as hard as ever to maintain the Plus One service you expect from us. We will continue to expedite and prioritize all coating orders for COVID-19 research and containment efforts.

We have been closely monitoring ongoing developments regarding the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and are actively taking steps to ensure the safety of SilcoTek employees, their families, and our local community. We've increased cleaning, cancelled travel, cancelled meetings, and restricted access to the facility and manufacturing operations in an effort to maintain a safe and healthy work environment.

Despite this situation, we also understand the importance of meeting delivery commitments to our customers. At this time, you should not expect to see any negative repercussions on orders you currently have in-house at SilcoTek or orders you are planning to send in the coming weeks. We have proactively contacted our critical supply partners to confirm that there should be no changes in our ability to provide game-changing coating services. As usual, SilcoTek employees are prepared to be responsive to emails, web inquiries and phone calls and will continue to deliver Plus-1 service. Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this serious disease.

Late note: Dr. Weiss will be speaking at SilcoTek unfortunately the March 12th date is being rescheduled for later in the year. We'll provide an updated schedule when available. But please read on and learn more about Dr. Weiss and LIGO.

Bellefonte, PA (March 3, 2020) –SilcoTek, a global coatings company based in Bellefonte, PA, will host Rai Weiss, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, at their headquarters on March 12th. Weiss won the prestigious award in 2017 for his achievements related to detecting gravitational waves.

Weiss intends to utilize SilcoTek’s innovative coating technology to improve the efficiency and feasibility of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). According to the LIGO website, the project was designed “to open the field of gravitational-wave astrophysics through the direct detection of gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.”

SilcoTek ranks 20th out of 49 small companies who won the designation of “Best Place to Work” in Pennsylvania in 2019. A total of 100 small, medium, and large sized companies are deemed winners and invited to an award ceremony in Lancaster where the final rankings are revealed. SilcoTek was also named a Best Places to Work winner in 2018.

SilcoTek awarded $82,585 in tax credits from Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Hanna and the DCED

State Rep.Mike Hanna, D-Clinton/Centre, today announced that SilcoTek Corporation received $82,585 in tax credits through the Department of Community and Economic Development’s Keystone Innovation Zone (KIZ) program.

“SilcoTek is a spinoff of Restek, a company that has been in Centre County for 30 years,” Hanna said. “We are proud to house both companies in the 76thlegislative district and look forward to seeing them grow and expand for many years to come.”

SilcoTek receives NSF certification

SilcoTek® has received certification by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) for theirDursan®coating. The coating complies with NSF/ANSI 51 requirements for food contact and is therefore also FDA compliant. This certification strengthens the company's position in penetrating key growth markets for coatings, such as medical and pharmaceutical. Dursan provides advanced surface properties such as anti-sticking and corrosion resistance that are critical to manufacturers in these industries.

SilcoTek®announced the hiring of Geoffrey K. White as General Counsel and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel. As General Counsel, Geoff will be instrumental in helping SilcoTek reach its goals of achieving 100 patents and 100 offsite manufacturing facilities by the year 2020. Read more.

SilcoTek Nominated For Pennsylvania Governor's ImPAct Award

SilcoTek®Corporation, based out of Bellefonte, PA, is being recognized for creating jobs that pay and their economic impact within the commonwealth as part of the third annual Governor's ImPAct Awards. Read More

SilcoTek's early payback of Ben Franklin investment will fund three other startups!

In 2009 Ben Franklin Technology Partners, a state-funded initiative that invests in tech-startups and small manufacturers, invested funds in the newly formed SilcoTek Corporation that would help increase SilcoTek's sales by developing a state-of-the-art facility dedicated only to coating customer-supplied parts. Today, with customers that include refineries, petro-chemical plants, and industrial, aerospace, and automotive manufacturers, SilcoTek is in the position of being able to pay off its remaining debt to Ben Franklin early. That money, a little more than $300,000, will be re-invested in three more startups located in Ben Franklin’s footprint.Read more.

SilcoTek Receives Outstanding Technical Company Award.

SilcoTek®, led by entrepreneur Paul Silvis, has been named the 2013 “Outstanding Technical Company” by the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County (CBICC).Each year, the CBICC presents the Outstanding Technical Company Award to a “chamber member that develops or implements exciting new technologies and makes them work for the betterment of business, industry and society.”SilcoTek®Corporation provides custom surface treatments to a variety of industries including refining, semiconductor manufacturing, and analytical sciences from their new 38,000 square foot facility in the Benner Commerce Park.

SilcoTek’s new building and early success is a preliminary step in the process of realizing Silvis’ vision for the company:

100 patents on coating technologies and advancements by the year 2020.

100 off-site processing oven installations by 2020.

$100 million in sales by 2020.

About Silcotek Corporation:Once a division of Restek Corporation, SilcoTek spun-off from the parent company in 2009 to form a completely separate business. The coatings company performs a special chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of silicon-based coatings that provide chemical inertness, corrosion resistance, durability and other material advantages to otherwise under performing parts in a variety of industrial marketplaces.

SilcoTek, is now separating itself from the competition as it continues to grow and earn industry validation. SilcoTek was formed in early 2009 behind the power of an innovative chemical-vapor deposition process, which coats metal surfaces with fused silicon. The new company took home $125,000 from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central and Northern Pennsylvania for marketing efforts in 2009 and another $250,000 in 2010.

SilcoTek forms European subsidiary.

In response to growing demand for silicon coatings in the European Union marketplace, SilcoTek Corporation has formed SilcoTek GmbH. SilcoTek GmbH is located in Bad Homburg, Germany and will provide coating sales and customer support to customers located in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. SilcoTek GmbH representatives will prospect for, and open new coating markets in process, analytical, gas, oil and semiconductor markets while providing sales support, logistics, order processing and customer service support to SilcoTek's growing customer base and Direct Line partners. Opening an EU office is part of SilcoTek's ongoing effort to provide Zero Disappointments, Integrity, and Plus One customer service (our ZIP Code) to coatings customers world-wide.

An innovative chemical-vapor deposition process, which coats metal surfaces with fused silicon, provides the technology to grow spinoff SilcoTek into a $202-million business by the year 2020, says veteran Central PA entrepreneur Paul Silvis, the leader of the new venture. The company was formed on January 1 from the performance-coatings division of Restek, a world leader in chromatography parts and supplies, which originally developed the process for application in chromatography.